


make like a tree

by hypocorism



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Art School, F/F, Hipsters, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypocorism/pseuds/hypocorism
Summary: cross-posted from aTumblrpromptNow withpodfic!Thank you bigblackdog!





	make like a tree

If Sirius has to talk to one more person wearing an oversized plaid shirt and square-frame glasses she’s going to scream.

“Stop scowling! You’ll put people off the art,” James complains.

“It’s boring here,” Sirius whines.

“You are a terrible friend.”

Sirius scoffs.

“On the contrary! I’m pretty sure the ‘terrible friend’ is the one who has forced me into this claustrophobic hipster factory. They don’t even have alcohol!”

“It’s a school art show,” James grumbles. “We didn’t have a very big budget.”

“What did they spend it on, shitty lighting?” Sirius dodges James’ elbow to the ribs.

“I have to side with James here,” Regulus says drily. “We sat through the entirety of your ‘play,’ after all.”

“Stop doing the air quotes! It was a real play!”

“It was just you talking about your mommy issues for two hours and wearing approximately six tenths of your wardrobe.”

“You’re massively underestimating the size of Sirius’ wardrobe,” James points out.

“I hate both of you,” Sirius says. She ditches them to go try and scare up some canapés.

Unfortunately, the last canapé has just been snagged by yet another hipster. Sirius glares at her and crosses her arms. The hipster raises a single eyebrow. This annoys Sirius further, as it’s a skill she has always wanted and never been able to master.

“Can I help you?”

“Can you make this place suck less?” Sirius asks snippily. The hipster laughs rather than rolling her eyes and walking away. This is frustrating, as talking to people is generally less entertaining than annoying them.

“I don’t think that’s within the range of human capability.” Sirius would almost like this person if she hadn’t _just_ eaten the last bit of available food. “You could just leave, you know.” Never mind, Sirius hates her.

“For your information,” Sirius says, tilting her nose up, “I’m exhibiting my work here.”

“Are you?” The hipster does the single eyebrow thing again. Sirius seethes. She’s wearing some sort of terrible oversized patchy jumper with an actual fucking wolf on it and black leggings and she probably has lots of opinions about The Smiths. Sirius hates her _a lot._

“Yes, actually, I am.” Sirius swans her way over to the nearest vaguely acceptable looking art and gestures at it with a flourish. “This is mine.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Sirius says, darting a brief glance at the label under the painting. “That’s me. Remus Lupin.”

“Nice to meet you, Remus.”

“I wish I could say it’s mutual.”

“So,” hipster girl seems completely incapable of taking a hint and seems to be settling in to marvel at Sirius’ fake artistic abilities. Sirius tries to look like she paints stuff and that her sole connection to art isn’t modeling for James’ poorly planned last minute shit. “What’s your inspiration? This painting seems really deep.”

Sirius looks at the painting. It looks like the artist decided to paint a nature scene and then got high halfway through and just made everything sparkly and pink. She’s kind of into it.

“It’s a diatribe on the confinement of femininity to the domestic sphere,” Sirius says. Those sound like arty words, she’s basically amazing at this. And James said this major was hard.

“Wow. Profound. How about that other one?”

“The one that looks like a tree reevaluating his life choices?”

Hipster girl laughs. Her eyes crinkle up at the corners and she has dimples and Sirius stomps very hard on the little endeared flip her stomach gives.

“Yes, that one. Does he regret going into banking, do you think?”

“It’s just not a very practical choice for a tree.”

“Perhaps he should just leaf his job.”

“Wow,” Sirius smirks. “That was terrible.”

“Ah, well. We don’t all have your talent.”

“Very true. What are you doing here, anyway? Free food?”

“Nah, if I wanted free food I’d be at the thing next door. They have fondue.”

Sirius perks up at this.

“Right, see you, then.”

“Aren’t the artists required to stay in the gallery space?”

Sirius folds her arms.

“No,” she says. She’s fairly certain James mentioned something about that, but whatever. What is this person going to do, tattle on her to her nonexistent professor?

“My mistake.”

Sirius narrows her eyes.

“You never did tell me your name.”

“Ah. Well funnily enough, my name is also Remus Lupin.”

Sirius has not had extensive stage training for nothing. She keeps her face completely blank.

“What a coincidence.”

“Small world, isn’t it?”

Sirius gives up. She’s not going to be able to carry this one off with aplomb; she knows when she’s beaten.

“Why don’t you artists have labels stuck to you, or something? And why are you eating the food! Really, you should feel bad for making this such a hostile environment for guests.”

“It’s actually on the rubric for gallery showings. Twenty points: antagonize art viewers.”

Sirius very stubbornly does not laugh, but it’s a near thing. She possibly smiles a bit.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, your art is less awful than most of the other art here.”

“High praise indeed.”

Sirius shrugs.

“The only piece I like is James’ portrait of me. It’s objectively the best thing here.”

At this point, a cluster of people in poorly fitting suits with collectively terrible facial hair wander over and seem to be performing some sort of evaluation of Remus. Sirius can’t decide if she’s more irritated that she has to immediately leave or risk looking like a loser or that she got sucked into conversation with an art student in the first place.

“You’ve been gone for ages,” James complains when Sirius gets back. “I had nothing to entertain me.”

“Where’s Reg gone?”

“Homework,” James says gloomily. Sirius rolls her eyes. For some fucking reason, Regulus has chosen to do accounting, instead of theatre or studio art or even something quasi-reasonable like classics. Their parents are really annoyingly proud of him; Sirius is the only one taking being a family disappointment seriously here.

There’s always the (increasingly distant) chance that he and James will get their shit together and gay elope. Sirius lives in optimism.

“When can we leave?”

“Where did you get off to, anyway?” James asks, completely ignoring her.

“Just places,” Sirius says evasively.

“Cute girl?”

“As if,” Sirius scoffs. “It’s all art students here.”

“Your last boyfriend was an art student.”

“James, it continues to be weird when you refer to yourself as my 'last boyfriend.’ We were both experimenting with being straight and it was embarrassing. Let me forget in peace.”

“I still think my point stands.”

“I’m going to start dating someone just so I can officially divorce you,” Sirius grumbles.

James pulls her into a hug and smacks a kiss on her cheek.

“You’ll never be rid of me!”

“Disgusting,” Sirius says, grinning. She abruptly shoves James away when she sees Remus heading toward them, hissing, “Be cool!”

It’s hopeless. James has never been cool a day in his life. Remus is barely in speaking distance before James is practically brimming with glee and rubbing his hands together.

“Hello, Remus,” he says.

Fuck, how did Sirius not consider that they know each other? James has probably made a terrible impression.

“James,” Remus says drily. “I was just coming over to say hi to the other Remus.”

Sirius does NOT blush. She does, however, glare aggressively at the side of James’ head and try to evaporate him with her mind. It does not work.

“Other Remus?” James asks.

“Look at my portrait,” Sirius yelps, grabbing Remus’ arm and turning her to face it. Remus grins over at her but then looks.

“You’re right. Definitely objectively the best piece.”

“Told you so,” Sirius says smugly.

“It’s not too bad,” James tilts his head thoughtfully. “You can hardly tell it was done twelve hours before the deadline and three energy drinks in.”

Remus laughs and looks over at James. Sirius glares at him over Remus’ shoulder.

James, being not entirely shit, takes the hint and fucks off. He does mouth 'art students are totally your type,’ as he pretends someone’s calling him, but Sirius chooses to be the bigger person and ignore this.

“So, I have to admit I lied a bit earlier.”

“I knew it,” Sirius exclaims. “You’re not Remus Lupin either, are you?”

Remus laughs. _Harder than she did at James’ dumb joke_ , Sirius thinks smugly.

“No. About the artists needing to stick around the whole time. I’ve talked to my professor so I can probably get away with sneaking out now.”

“Oh,” Sirius says, definitely not disappointed.

“So, are you still up for a fondue espionage mission?” Remus asks, raising an eyebrow.

Sirius acknowledges (if only to herself) that her type may very well be hipster art students.


End file.
